Many motor vehicle owners choose to change their own oil in their vehicle. Changing oil in an internal combustion engine is generally a fairly simple task. However, one of the most onerous and vexing steps in changing the oil in an internal combustion engine is manipulating the oil filter to either remove the old filter or to place the new filter in position. The oil filters in most modern engines are often positioned in difficult-to-reach locations thus making access to the filter difficult at best. To make matters worse, many times the old filter is stuck in place and can be extremely difficult to remove, even after reaching that filter with a wrench or other tool. The position of the filter often makes manipulation of a wrench difficult so that mere removal of the filter may be difficult, let alone unsticking a stuck filter.
This overall process of removing an old filter that may be stuck in place and replacing that filter with a new filter, may require a degree of manual dexterity that may daunt a novice, and can create problems even for an experienced mechanic, especially if that mechanic has lost some dexterity in his hands as because of arthritis, injury or the like. Therefore, many people are dissuaded from changing their own oil.
For these reasons, the art has included several proposals for various wrenches which can be used to manipulate an oil filter in an internal combustion engine. While somewhat successful, these known oil filter wrenches have several drawbacks which still may inhibit easy operation thereof and easy removal and replacement of an oil filter.
For example, some oil filter wrenches require a flexible, cloth band to be wrapped around the filter and then twisted in a special manner, while others require a loop of some sort to be placed over the filter and manipulated. This may require a great deal of manual dexterity to place, secure and manipulate such loop. Still further, such wrenches are still prone to slipping even after being secured about the filter.
These problems are-especially evident in certain engines where space is quite tight. Some motorcycle engines fall into this group.
Still further, it is not desirable for an oil filter wrench to mar or damage the oil filter during a manipulation of that filter using the wrench. The inventor has found that some wrenches present the possibility of such damage and marring.
Therefore, there is a need for an oil filter wrench which is easy to secure about an in situ oil filter, even if that filter is positioned in a difficult-to-reach or tight location, and makes it easy to manipulate the secured oil filter in special engines, such as motorcycle engines, such as a Harley Davidson FXR engine, and makes it easy to place a new filter in position, yet does not raise a substantial possibility of marring or damaging the oil filter when that filter is being moved using the wrench.